Comparative Evaluation of Five Laboratory Screening Tests for Assessing the Antifungal Potential of Products for Wood Preservation

Abstract

This paper refers to a number of laboratory tests designed to allow a quick and reliable evaluation of the potential biocidal effect of chemicals intended to be used as wood preservatives with antifungal properties. A total of five tests were run in parallel employing two biocides with recognised efficiency as reference products in comparison with distilled water as control. The relevance of these tests in highlighting the antifungal properties of the tested reference products and the practical aspects of the actual testing procedures were considered in the comparative evaluation of the five tests. Two tests were selected for further experiments.